Signs of Obliviousness

Despite the amusing title, I'm absolutely serious about this one - and furious too!

Really it's two issues, though the second one grows out of the first.

Every time. Every time I am in a park - regional, provincial or national - I see people ignoring the posted signs.

"PLEASE KEEP OFF THE RE-VEGETATED AREA"
The signs are posted, the area is clearly fenced off - at least from the path side - I'm slightly willing to cut some slack when it comes to people crossing from the other side. The beach continues along past the re-vegetated area with no access paths - but it's not clearly marked from that side. I've managed to do it once without realizing right away. In my defense, I think the tide was coming in pretty quickly too. However, I've also seen people just hop over the fence to go wander in that area - kids chasing the rabbits, or people not wanting to walk all the way back to the proper beach access path from the washrooms. The other day I even saw some people with bicycles on the wrong side of that fence! And if someone confronts a person doing that, they're likely to get told to F*** *** and mind their own business. I've seen that very response - and it makes me feel very uncomfortable about speaking up when I see this kind of behavior.

"NO DOGS ALLOWED ON THE BEACH BETWEEN THESE DATES"
Inevitably I'll see dogs running freely on the beach, off leash with their owners throwing balls or sticks. Ask them about it and the response is usually "I didn't see the signs". Said signs are placed at every access path. How could you not see them? Perhaps you just didn't want to see them?

Same thing is true for the signs that say "ALL DOGS MUST BE LEASHED".
Or, you'll hear "My dog is well behaved and doesn't need to be on a leash". Which suggests that the owner doesn't think that the rules need to apply to them.

The other one - one I haven't seen in person yet, but have definitely seen evidence for is people ignoring the "NO BICYCLES" signs along the trails. It's kind of hard to disguise the tire-tracks left behind in the mud, so I know this sign is another frequently ignored one.

Those are all bad enough. Here is the one that has me finally going ahead with this rant.

I live in British Columbia. This year we're having a real problem with forest fires all across the province. There's a fire ban in place for nearly all of the province. All the parks have clearly posted signs to say "NO FIRES" and also "NO SMOKING"  at the entries to each trail and also posted along the trails. I was out two days ago enjoying a wonderful hike up in the mountains two days ago - except that as I came along the route back, I was stuck behind a group who insisted on smoking - despite the signs. There were four of them, and only two of us, so I didn't feel comfortable about speaking up. Perhaps I should have anyway. I could see the cigarettes in their hands, and most definitely smell the smoke!

They're not the only ones though. Despite clear announcements of the fire ban, people are still lighting campfires! I just can't fathom the attitude.

Fire Restrictions Ignored By Campers
Ignored Fire Ban and Evac
Some Campers On The B.C. Coast Ignoring Open Fire Ban Despite Interior Wildfires
Campfire Ban Ignored
B.C. officials to investigate after firefighters reportedly breach campfire ban

And those are just a selection of articles on the topic. I just can't understand people sometimes. We're seeing the devastation caused by fires all around the province - not to mention more of them in the USA. It's bad enough when those fires are caused by lightning. There's not a lot we can do about that. But to risk causing more fires through human stupidity?

I sincerely hope that nobody reading this blog condones behavior like this, but I won't apologize for my attitude towards it all.

I am so sick and tired of the obliviousness to clearly posted signs and rules, either because people don't think they should apply to them, or they think they can get away with breaking the rules - sadly this is probably true all too often. I'm tired of it. Tired of going to the beach and seeing the remains of fires. Tired of hearing people in campgrounds stamping around in the brush to find wood to burn - when the rules clearly say it's not allowed. Tired of seeing dogs chasing birds in areas where dogs aren't allowed off leash. Tired of seeing unauthorized trails ground into the parks by people who figure they can just go anywhere they please. I'm tired of it all! And I don't know what can be done about it. 

Or, am I just an old-fashioned kill-joy of a stick in the mud who wants to take away peoples fun when I believe that these rules should be followed? Do we live in a society where rules don't mean anything anymore? Should I simply get used to seeing this kind of behavior and start closing my eyes towards it?  Sometimes I wonder.

Green Point Sunsets

Last week my husband and I spent some time camping at Green Point in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. He'd told me the scenery was going to be spectacular, and it was! Especially the sunsets - here are a couple of representative photos, linked over from my DeviantArt account.



Tofino Sunset 2 by Endaewen on DeviantArt


Tofino Sunset by Endaewen on DeviantArt

Camping at Green Point was a new experience for me. I'm more used to the Provincial campgrounds and the standards set there: don't leave your coolers out, any other forms of food, toiletries, soaps and the like, but your water jug, stove etc. are all fine to stay out for the duration of your trip.

At Green Point on the other hand, they run a bare campsite policy, and when they say bare, they mean bare. Your camp furniture is allowed (chairs, lanterns and tent), but nothing else. Everything else such as your water jug has to be stored in a hard-sided vehicle or trailer.

On the plus side of things, the vehicle-accessible campsites at Green Point are all powered - makes charging your phone etc a breeze - not to mention your laptop or camera batteries. I took mine so I could clear off my camera card at need, and I filled it on the first three days of the trip, and went through four camera batteries in about the same time.

On the other hand, both the Green Point Campground and Tofino have terrible data reception, although it seems as though it's actually better at Green Point. If you really need to check your e-mail though, in Tofino is a wonderful little coffee-shop called Tuff Beans. I highly recommend stopping in there for a hot chocolate to go with your WiFi. For Fish and Chips, try Big Daddy's Fish Fry, just down the road.

Also a plus: two individual camp cots with "nightstands" (detachable pockets on one side for glasses etc). With the addition of an inflatable mattress-pad and a foam pad, they made for the most comfortable camping nights I've had yet. And the "nightstands" turned out to be even more of a blessing than I thought.

Our tent leaked. Tofino gets an average of 202 rainy days a year, so we had plenty of chances to discover this fact. Tarping the tent fixed some of the problems, but I still found myself with a pool of water under the foam pad in my cot. Which is why I said the "nightstands" were a blessing. I was able to keep all electronics, as well as my books off the ground and away from the damp.

Even with all of that, I recommend camping at Green Point highly. We weren't lucky enough to see or hear any, but the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve is home to wolves, bears and cougar.

Back From Camping

I've been back for a couple of days now, but was busy finishing off the Berkley Indexing Course, as the deadline for that was today. Camping was lots of fun, several days of kayaking, fishing and hiking at one of my favourite campgrounds. We've taken the kayaks there for the day once, but not for a full-on camping trip before.

This time we did something a bit different too - took a regular step-ladder to make it possible to set up the tarps higher up. Worth doing again, because we had the tarps set high enough that it was possible to safely have them covering the fire-pit (so long as it wasn't a raging high fire).

Quite a few of the tarps we use are older ones, still good, except some of the grommets have been ripped out by wind and ropes over the years, but we tried and found an incredible fix, the EZ-Grabbit Tarp Holder. Simple to put together, and you know what, they held the tarps far more effectively and with fewer leaks than the pony clips we'd been using before this trip.

And leaks were definitely a concern. It rained for at least part of the day every day but the last that we were there. Even so, we had a fire every morning and another each evening, and generally enjoyed ourselves completely with only a couple of drips to worry about from between the tarps.

It was also fun poking around the other sites in the campground. Usually they're all inhabited, but this time the whole site was nearly empty. The things you find sometimes. One site was full of nice, long pieces of rope and cord as though someone had taken down their tarps but couldn't be bothered to untie all the other ends of the ropes. So, we added to our stash of rope.

No photos to show, even though we saw things we'd have loved to photograph, including raccoons and birds. It was just too wet to want to take the cameras out.

I did manage to finish reading one of my books - still need to review it though: Facing The Text by Do Mi Stauber. I've mentioned it in a couple of places here over the last couple of months. Now it's been read, I just need to review it.